乌尔里希·贝克

乌尔里希·贝克（德语：Ulrich Beck，1944年5月15日—2015年1月1日），德国社会学家，是慕尼黑大学和伦敦政治经济学院的教授。

简历

贝克教授生于德国斯托尔普（今波兰斯武普斯克）。从1966年起他在慕尼黑大学学习社会学、哲学、心理学和政治学。1972年，在获得博士学位之后，他开始在慕尼黑大学从事社会科学的工作。1979年他获得了大学讲师职位。先后在明斯特与巴姆贝格任教，1992年回到慕尼黑大学担任社会学教授。

Ulrich Beck (German: [bɛk]; 15 May 1944 – 1 January 2015) was a German sociologist, and one of the most cited social scientists in the world during his lifetime. His work focused on questions of uncontrollability, ignorance and uncertainty in the modern age, and he coined the terms "risk society" and "second modernity" or "reflexive modernization". He also tried to overturn national perspectives that predominated in sociological investigations with a cosmopolitanism that acknowledges the interconnectedness of the modern world. He was a professor at LMU Munich and also held appointments at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH) in Paris, and at the London School of Economics.

Life

Beck was born in the Pomeranian town of Stolp, Germany (now Słupsk in Poland), in 1944, and grew up in Hanover. He began university studies with a focus on law at the University of Freiburg, and from 1966 onwards studied sociology, philosophy, psychology and political science at LMU Munich. Starting in 1972, after earning a doctorate, he was employed at LMU Munich as a sociologist. In 1979, he qualified as a university lecturer with a habilitation thesis. He received appointments as professor at the University of Münster (1979–1981) and the University of Bamberg (1981–1992). From 1992 until his death, Beck was professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Sociology at LMU Munich. He received numerous international awards and honors, including election to the Council and Executive Board of the German Society for Sociology.

From 1995 to 1997, he was a member of the Kommission für Zukunftsfragen der Freistaaten Bayern und Sachsen (Bavarian and Saxon State Commission for Questions Concerning the Future). Beginning in 1999, he was the speaker of the DFG research programme on reflexive modernity.

From 1999 to 2009, Beck was a spokesman of the Collaborative Reflexive Modernization Research Centre 536, an interdisciplinary consortium of four universities in the Munich area funded and overseen by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Beck's theory of interdisciplinary reflexive modernization on a basis of a wide range of topics in appropriate research was empirically tested. The theory of reflexive modernization works from the basic idea that the rise of the modern industrial age produces side-effects across the globe that provide the institutional basis and coordinates that modern nation-states question, modify, and open for political action.

He was active as sociologist and public intellectual in Germany and throughout the world, regularly intervening in debates on the European Union, climate change and nuclear energy. At the time of his death, he and his international research group were only 1.5 years into the 5-year research project "Methodological Cosmopolitanism – in the Laboratory of Climate Change" (the Cosmo-Climate Research Project), of which Beck was the Principal investigator. For this research project he received the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant, scheduled to terminate in 2018. Along with Beck, sociologists David Tyfield and Anders Blok lead work packages within the overall project. The project also fostered international research collaboration with various research 'hubs' in East Asia through the Europe-Asia Research Network (EARN). In cooperation with EARN, Beck and sociologist Sang-Jin Han had been set to lead a 2-year project for the Seoul Metropolitan Government beginning in 2015.

Beck was a member of the Board of Trustees at the Jewish Center in Munich and a member of the German branch of PEN International.

He was married to the German social scientist Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (1946–2025). He died of a myocardial infarction on 1 January 2015, at the age of 70.